South Sherman Fire & Rescue Awarded Assistance to Firefighters Grant

Solar Viewing at the Discovery Center, May 28

North Central Public Health District Board Meeting, June 7

Klindt’s Booksellers’ 6th Annual Spring Author Festival, June 4

From Sea to Sea in a Horse less Carriage

Links: Things to Think About & Things to Do

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away. ~ Marcus Aurelius

1.Sherman County Public/School Library Book Club, May 24

The Library Book Club will be meeting at 6:00pm, May 24. Please join us for discussion of “Juliet’s Nurse” and refreshments, even if you haven’t read the book! Call 541-565-3279 or e-mail shermanlibrary@sherman.k12.or.us to request a hold on our June/July book, “The Lake House” by Kate Morton.

2. “Sticks in Stacks” at Sherman County Public/School Library Thursday, May 26

Social crafting starts at 6:00 p.m. every Thursday. Instructional assistance for knit, crochet, and spinning will be available at 7:00 p.m. Bring your knitting, crochet, spinning, quilting, or cross-stitch projects. All fiber arts are welcome.
For further information about this program please contact Sherman County Public/School Library at (541) 565-3279 or email shermanlibrary@sherman.k12.or.us.

South Sherman Fire and Rescue is pleased to announce it has been awarded an Assistance to Firefighters grant from FEMA, in the amount of $44,572 under the Operations and Safety category. This grant will be used to outfit the volunteer firefighters with Structural Turnout Gear including Coats, Pants, Boots, Gloves, Carbonknight Hoods, and helmets. The new gear will replace the older gear that no longer meets national standards for firefighter safety. ~ Glenn R. Fluhr, Chief, South Sherman Fire & Rescue www.southshermanfire.com

4. Solar Viewing at the Discovery Center, May 28

Bob Yoesle from Friends of the Goldendale Observatory will present a solar viewing free to the public Saturday, May 28, from 12 noon to 4 pm at Columbia Gorge Discovery Center in The Dalles. Using special safely-filtered telescopes you can view the surface of the sun. This event is free, and will be held, weather permitting, on the museum lawn. Museum admission still applies for visitors who wish to see the exhibits. For more information visit www.gorgediscovery.org.

5. North Central Public Health District Board Meeting, June 7

The North Central Public Health District Board will be meeting Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 3:00 p.m. at the North Central Public Health District, located at 419 E. 7th Street, in the Main Meeting Room, in The Dalles, Oregon. This meeting is open to the general public.

Salem, Ore. – Today, Oregon lawmakers met with multiple stakeholders to discuss the Owyhee Canyonlands Monument Proposal. Special interest groups are pressuring President Barack Obama, Governor Kate Brown, and Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley to declare 2.5 million acres of land in Eastern Oregon a federal monument. The designation would create excessive regulations that will close roads, reducing access to the public for hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, and rafting, prevent farmers and ranchers from sustainably managing the land in their own backyard, and threaten the rural economy of Southeastern Oregon.

“The Owyhee Canyonlands are home to Oregonians who live and farm the land, caring for it responsibly for generations,” said Senate Republican Leader Ted Ferrioli (R-John Day). “Declaring this land a monument is unnecessary and goes too far. The Canyonlands already enjoy multiple layers of protection that preserve the water quality, environment, recreation, wildlife, and sustainable multiple use of the public lands. The Oregon Senate Republicans stand with the people of the Owyhee Canyonlands in united opposition to a monument declaration that will inhibit public access and harm families in this unique rural community. This divisive, progressive assault on rural Oregon needs to stop.”

Those opposing the Owyhee Canyonlands monument declaration are encouraged to join the Oregon Senate Republicans by signing a petition telling Governor Brown and Oregon’s Congressional leaders to oppose the declaration without a vote of Congress. The petition and more information about the history of the Owyhee Canyonlands can be found at ourlandourvoice.com.

7. Klindt’s Booksellers’ 6th Annual Spring Author Festival, June 4

This year’s Spring Author Festival will feature twelve amazing writers with titles for all ages and interests. Join us to celebrate books about dragons, espionage and intrigue, unicorns, aliens, canoeing, tennis, dogs, grief, and just being human. From Young Adult to Graphic Novels, from Children’s Chapter to Adult Fiction, there is something for everyone at Klindt’s 2016 Spring Author Festival.

In conjunction with this event, Klindt’s will be hosting a book drive to benefit the classroom at the Northern Oregon Regional Correction Facility (NORCOR). Klindt’s will be donating titles featured at this year’s Spring Author Festival and many authors will be contributing books as well. A wish list will be on hand from NORCOR teacher Phil Brady for interested donors to consult. Klindt’s Booksellers will kick-off the NORCOR book drive during its June 4th event and continue to accept donations for NORCOR until July 1st.

In addition to collecting books for the NORCOR library, Klindt’s will be sending five of our visiting authors out to visit the NORCOR classroom and meet with incarcerated teens that are unable to come join the festivities.

As always, this event is free and open the the public. We hope you can join us Saturday, June 4th from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. for the 6th annual Spring Author Festival at Klindt’s in The Dalles.

More information about each participating author is attached. To arrange author interviews, or for any other press inquiries, please contact Tina Ontiveros at klindtsbooksellers@gmail.com.

8. From Sea to Sea in a Horseless Carriage

Thirty-one-year-old Horatio Nelson Jackson was visiting San Francisco’s University Club in 1903 when someone wagered fifty dollars that it would be impossible to drive an automobile to New York in less than ninety days. Jackson immediately took the bet. He did not own an auto, and no one had ever crossed the continent by car. At that time, the United States boasted only 150 miles of paved roads—all of them inside cities. “Highways” were often nothing more than two ruts leading toward the horizon.

Jackson purchased a used, 20-horsepower car made by the Winton Motor Carriage Company of Cleveland, christened it the Vermont after his home state, and hired mechanic Sewall Crocker to accompany him. They loaded the auto with supplies, and on May 23, 1903, the two men left San Francisco on the first drive “from sea to sea in a horseless carriage,” as the San Francisco Examiner reported.

They bounced along cliffside ledges, splashed across bridgeless streams, zigzagged over trackless plains. Tires blew out, springs broke, bolts sheared off, parts rattled to pieces. Bad directions took them hundreds of miles out of the way. They lost count of how many times they had to haul the Vermont out of mud holes. But at every farm, village, and town, curious folks gave them a hand. Blacksmiths helped them make repairs. In Idaho they bought a bulldog named Bud, fitted him with driving goggles, and took him along for the rest of the ride.

On July 26, the mud-covered Vermont rolled into Manhattan. The journey had taken 63 days. Though he never bothered to collect his fifty dollars, Horatio Nelson Jackson won his bet. The age of the open road had dawned for the American automobile.

American History Parade

1785

Benjamin Franklin writes in a letter that he has just invented bifocal glasses.

1788

South Carolina becomes the eighth state to ratify the Constitution.

1903

Horatio Nelson Jackson and Sewell Crocker leave San Francisco on the first automobile trip across the United States.

“To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquility would be to calculate on the weaker springs of human character.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)